


A Prince's Salvation

by Lemon_Drizzle



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 09:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemon_Drizzle/pseuds/Lemon_Drizzle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor and Loki have returned to Asgard, and Thor won't give up on his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Prince's Salvation

**Author's Note:**

> I took artistic liberties with Æsir physiology. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Thor pushed through the heavy golden doors of the Vault and eyed the guards on either side of them. “Leave us. I would have words with my brother.”

They exchanged a glance, and one spoke. “But the King—”

”I am a Prince of Asgard, and I command you to leave!” Thor bellowed. A sneer lifted one corner of his mouth. “Or shall you receive your punishment for insubordination right here and now?”

The two men did not know what had transpired in the Realm of Midgard, but there was much speculation among the citizens and servants of the royal palace. One thing for sure was that Thor, once a spoiled boy who had miraculously learned from his banishment how to be worthy of the title of King, had partly reverted back to his old ways since returning with his brother, who was very much alive and in a muzzle and chains.

”Your Highness,” ceded the one who had first challenged him. “We shall take up our watch in the corridor.”

”Very well,” Thor said, hiding his disappointment. He was in a mood to show them their place. But the fault did not lie with them—they were only following his father’s orders. “Be gone. And let no others pass.”

”Sir,” they said as one and retreated from the large underground room.

Thor inhaled deeply to steel himself and slowly descended the steps to the main level of the Vault. They were the same steps on which his father had fallen into the Odin-sleep, as had been related to him after his return from exile.

Odin had been conscious of everything, Thor had been told. The All-Father had felt his son reach for him, had felt him hesitate for fear that his Frost-Giant touch would cause him further harm.

And his mother had shared the details of the private ceremony when Gungnir was passed down to Loki. There had been reluctance on the part of the new King. There had been fear. The young prince had been afraid to disappoint. And his claims of having never wanted the throne had been believed and appreciated only after he had been thought dead and gone.

_How has it come to this?_ he thought as he reached the bottom of the staircase. _How has my brother been turned from a mischievous boy into a man bent on mayhem and chaos?_ But more importantly: _How can it be fixed?_

He walked past the empty pedestals, eyes fixed on the cell at the end. Odin had had all artifacts, trophies, spoils removed to the Hall of the Past, a showcase of Asgard’s once, present, and future glory on view to all who had any doubts upon the Princes’ return.

Since Thor’s defeat of the Destroyer, its chamber had stood empty, to be filled with the next class of superior weaponry. The time had come sooner than Thor would have thought. He stopped before the cross-hatched bars and looked into the dim room. In the far corner lay a down mattress. On top of it, a slumped figure sat against the wall. A tray of meats, bread, and ale stayed untouched at the foot of the bedding, as had every meal for the previous four weeks.

_Æsir_ could not starve to death. Without sustenance, they simply withered away, but not to nothing—to the brink of nothing. And without the strength to move or speak, they stiffened, hardened, almost becoming stone—living statues. No one knew how long one could remain in such a state. Legend spoke of resurrection after many years, but also of mishaps and piles of rubble.

Loki was weaker than he had been on his arrival—he had been resigned but quite capable then—but he was still far from the transition into immobile rock. Thor would have preferred it if his brother would cooperate with more than just his confinement, though.

He looked around himself, wondering where to start tonight. Unlike his brother, he had not the gift of words—he was a man of action. Noticing the absence of a table and what had stood upon it gave him his opening.

”The _sjakkbrett_ has been removed,” he said, almost obviously, but if it baited his brother, he would gladly sound a fool. “On Odin’s orders?”

There was nothing from the form in the corner.

”Surely not yours,” he went on. “The guards would have informed me of your speaking. And with no drink for your parched throat, you would hardly sound so weak and affected before subordinates.”

Loki stayed quiet. He had always won the Game of Silence as children. And after four weeks, Thor had gotten used to talking to himself.

”Making your moves as well as mine might’ve been the only way for me to win against you, brother,” he chuckled, though it pained him to feign such mirth. “I never could plan well. Thinking ahead was always your domain. Your brain, my brawn. We were unstoppable, brother.”

He reached up to the bars and set his face against them. There was no electric current, no magic ward to keep him out. All that mattered was neutralizing the captive and keeping whatever it was inside. As it had been with the Destroyer, only the king could open the cell. There was absolutely no chance for Loki to escape—had he felt so inclined.

”Do you remember our first lone Bilgesnipe hunt, brother?” he asked throatily. “We separated one of the males from the herd. It was ready to serve as distraction to save the others. You stood at the edge of a great pit, daring it to charge. Its nature would not allow it to back down from such a challenge. And when it struck you—what it must have thought when it passed right through you. You and your projection—your magic, your favorite trick.”

He stared into the darkness, remembering the scene on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flying fortress, the Helicarrier—when Loki had sent him plummeting down into sure doom. Still he forgave him. Still he sought to reconcile with he who wished him dead. _That is brotherhood_ , he accepted simply.

”It was alive at the bottom of the hole. I stoned it out of its misery and retrieved it. And we carried it back between us to much celebration. We were men then. We were the Warrior Princes of Asgard.”

Though only one could be king.

”Do you remember,” he carried on, softer, gentler, seeking to appeal to any piece of his treasured sibling that remained, “how we painted the _Uruz_ on each other’s foreheads in the blood? And we feasted on the heart together. Mother would not let us kiss her cheek until we had cleaned our teeth _three_ times. Do you remember that, brother?”

”Stop calling me that!” Loki screamed, rising to his feet and stalking to the bars.

Thor did not shy away, did not even flinch. Not even when he saw how his brother had transformed by his strong emotions—blue skin, etchings across his skin, and red eyes, all of his Frost Giant heritage.

”Do I _look_ like your brother?” Loki growled, his voice menacing from both the anger welling inside and the gravelly condition of his throat. “The resemblance is uncanny, is it not? The sun-kissed and the icy death—brothers they must be!”

Thor ignored the biting sarcasm, and his non-reaction wasn’t what Loki wanted to see nor expected. The detainee’s sneer flattened, and Thor tried to reach through the wall of the cage to him, but he stepped away, lurching back almost in panic, barely avoiding tripping over his feet. The blue tint of his skin faded to smooth, pale cream, and his ruby eyes softened to dark moss.

_What is he afraid of?_ Thor wondered. Getting hurt himself, or hurting the brother he had disowned? “You could be _Svartálfr_ —with a tail for measure—and I would love you no less than as my brother. I _could not_.”

Loki blinked, then scoffed. “Love. Love is weakness.”

”Nay, brother, love is a great strength,” Thor told him, still with his hand through the bars—nothing past his forearm could fit. “To open your heart, to bear your soul to another creature against threat of ruin, desolation, and collapse—that is a most brave and noble truth of life. You are loved. It always was, is, and will be so.”

Loki stood there at the edge of shadow and stared. As the God of Lies, he knew all the secrets. But Thor was not smart enough for such deceit. In his confusion, his brows drew together, and he jutted out his chin so that it wouldn’t tremble.

As suddenly as Thor had seen his brother start to show sign of life, for who he had used to be begin to peek through, who he was now closed himself off again. His face became blanketed with indifference once again, and his shoulders drew back in their regal, antipathetic way.

Thor’s arm went limp on the bar as Loki turned away and went back to the mattress in the corner. He exhaled a disappointed breath and leaned his forehead against the metal. After a moment, he pushed away and stepped back from the wall.

”Tomorrow, then…brother.”

The slumped figure had nothing more to say that day.

After a slow retreat up the staircase, Thor entered the corridor, and with one look from him, the two guards returned to their usual posts inside the chamber.

A figure stepped into view from around the corner close to the doors. Frigga.

Thor gathered her gently to himself. If anyone still loved Loki as much and as openly as he did, it was their mother. “Does my Father know you are down here?”

”If he had not his royal duties and responsibilities to the people of Asgard, your Father would be down here with us,” she informed him surely.

”He had the _sjakkbrett_ taken away,” Thor shared. “Why would he order such a thing? Loki cared not half as much as myself about the games I played for us.”

”Odin has reasons for all that he does,” she said, perhaps defending other choices that the All-Father had made. “We do not see value in some things until they are lost to us.”

”Can Loki be fooled with such tricks?”

”You know better than anyone,” Frigga told him, drawing away to look him over. “How was he today? Is there progress? Is it…? Tell me it not too late for our Loki, Thor.”

”It is not,” he assured her. “It is not too late. It is not hopeless. He is not lost to us.”

”You know this? Your heart does not speak too soon?”

”We had words this day,” Thor said. “We met each other’s eye and spoke truth.”

Frigga covered her mouth and gripped his hand. “He spoke to you?”

”It was bittersweet,” he let down easily. “His voice is full of anger and pain. He thinks himself lost.” He shook his head. “His mind is greatly cracked, but in some deep, dark hole lies the Loki we know and love, waiting to be rescued. Today I came close, but he hides himself well. I will search every nook and crevice, Mother. I will never give up. I will find my brother.”


End file.
